


From Russia With Null Points

by neversaydie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music, Bucky and Steve do Eurovision, Eurovision, Eurovision Song Contest 2016, Fluff, Irish Steve, Kissing, M/M, Musicians, Steve's spangly outfits, russian bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6852049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bucky reps Russia with his emotional gothic rock, and Steve reps Ireland with his upbeat pro-LGBT message of love. They meet backstage. </p><p>Leather and glitter have never looked so good. </p><p>[Eurovision AU. That's literally it.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Russia With Null Points

**Author's Note:**

> The Russia-LGBT stuff is based on Eurovision last year where it was a big focus of (not) voting for them based on protesting their anti-LGBT laws. And they still almost won, but Sweden did instead!
> 
> The UK didn't come last this time hell yeah! (SO FAR...)

"They've changed the fuckin' voting system. It's called out last to first and they don't even broadcast numbers."

"Are you shitting me?"

"Would I fuck with you tonight Steven Grant? Jesus H." Sharon rolls her eyes and lifts her can of shimmery hairspray again, threateningly close to his face. "Close your eyes."

"My bet's fuckin' thwarted now, the bookies never said they weren't reading out the votes this year." Steve pouts hard, feeling like the foundation around his mouth might crack as he exasperatedly closes his eyes. "C'mon, I feel like I'm wearing a fuckin' helmet already."

"You're dancing, shut your hole. You're not messing up a hair on this head." Sharon tweaks his ear and he yelps, because no matter how many times she does that since they started working together, he never expects it. "Who'd you bet on, anyway?"

"Me. Getting more than null points from Russia." He doesn't even feel chided when he hears his makeup artist scoff at that, because he knows for a fact the Swedish entry has put a thousand Euros on himself to win and a twenty quid flutter is nothing so decadent. "Ma lit a candle, it's definitely happening."

"Pillock." He dares to crack open an eye just in time to see Sharon tossing the hairspray back in her bag of tricks and trying not to smile. "Now, you're done. But if you rip your jeans again then you're going out in safety pins and you'll get no sympathy from me."

"Might get us points though, a bit of casual nudity." The jeans are way too tight, with their rhinestone rainbows on the back pockets restricting his movement even further, and he can only hope that his semi-final seam-splitting incident doesn't make a reappearance tonight.

"Not from Russia." She rolls her eyes, and Steve can't blame her. It was a pipe dream from the start to get huge amounts of points with an explicitly pro-LGBT song and stage setup, but a man can dream. "Now get going. You need to take pictures for Twitter and stuff."

"When can I start drinking again?" Steve whines dramatically, grinning when Sharon shoves him straight out of the closet-sized dressing room. He almost crashes into Sam, the guy who works for Eurovision and that Steve has come to think of as his handler, who escorts him to the main backstage area.

Regretfully avoiding the champagne and sticking to water that does nothing for his nerves, Steve poses for pictures with the other contestants and tries not to look too anxious. It's been a whirlwind few months, he'd only auditioned for the TV competition to find Ireland's Eurovision entry on a whim, and even being picked to perform on the pre-taped show had been a shock. Then people just kept _voting_ for him and his anthem of love (which had been written as an intentionally-explicit fuck-you to the political climate of his home country, and he still thinks people voted for it out of spite rather than actually liking the song), and then there was the live final and then he _won_.

And now he's here, in a spangly outfit, watching a man in a day-glo robot suit be helped onto the stage by four frantic stagehands before his cue. Eurovision is fucking weird.

The music starts, the singing in French apparently, and Steve occasionally picks up a word or two (je cherche? Steve has no idea what it means but he sort of recognises it). But mostly the massive blend of languages is background noise broken up with splattergun smatterings of English. He'd never even left Ireland before flying to Sweden for the semi-finals, and it's all slightly overwhelming. So much so that he grabs a bottle of water from a nearby table and gestures to Sam that he's going to get some air before his curtain call. He's twenty-third to perform tonight, he's got time to go and maybe sneak a guilty cigarette in a bathroom somewhere.

Predictably, the two bathrooms he happens upon are full and clearly up to code with their smoke alarms, and Steve doesn't dare venture any further into the backstage labyrinth in case he ends up the first contestant to ever just _not show up_ to the stage. He settles for finding a quiet corner to collect his thoughts in, which unfortunately turns out to be occupied only after he's already committed to his approach. It would be too awkward to turn back, so he grits his teeth and hopes the other contestant clearly also hiding from the noise is okay with uncomfortable silence.

The guy's pretty much wearing a gimp suit. Complete with folded-down face mask. Fucking Eurovision.

"Hey, mind if I…?" Steve gestures vaguely to the space next to the guy, who nods and twitches a polite, slightly strained smile. They're right under an air-conditioning vent, he realises, which makes sense when this dude is basically head to toe in black leather.

"You are the United Kingdom?" He asks with a heavy accent Steve can't place, shifting over to give Steve enough space as he settles into the cool corner.

"Ireland." Steve nods reflexively (why? It's so awkward to meet this many people at once, even though everyone is being really nice and helpful to each other. He's not sure how people do this as a full-time job, everyone's going to forget about him in two weeks and he's just about ready for it already) and unscrews the cap on his water to take a gulp. "You're… Ukraine?"

"Russia." The guy corrects, and if Steve's made some kind of political faux pas then he lets it slide as he sticks out one leather-gloved hand. "Bucky."

"Oh yeah, I saw you in the semis." Actually, he'd spent most of the time trying not to roll his eyes in front of any cameras. The Russian entry is pure Eurovision, a guitar-driven, 'hard rock' ballad called 'Winter Soldier', complete with snowy backdrop and angsty lyrics about falling and memory and the kitchen sink, probably. It's the bookies' favourite, but Steve didn't really care for it himself. He shakes the guy's hand anyway, of course. "You were great."

Lying through his teeth, slightly, but it's worth it when Bucky drops his eyes and blushes hard enough that the pink shows through his greasepaint. The guy's handsome, Steve notices now he's up close enough to see more than two black holes for eyes and a curtain of dark hair, and it's not unpleasant to see him blush. It's not like he could get gayer in his ridiculous rainbow ensemble, he might as well embrace it and perv a little when he gets the opportunity.

"Thank you. I was very, uh, nervous." Bucky rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably, probably sweating under his heavy leather costume. The music from the stage picks up into a heavy club beat, and it's probably just the sudden wash of blue lighting that makes it look like Bucky's peeking up at Steve through his eyelashes. "I like yours too. It's a good message."

"Huh. I didn't think you'd like ours that much." Steve rocks up on his toes awkwardly, thumbs hooked in his spangly jeans pockets because he doesn't know what to do with his hands. Bucky squints at him sideways through all his hair and eyeliner, which really shouldn't be hot when the guy is wearing some kind of leathery gimp suit with one glittery sleeve, but Steve clearly has terrible taste because it _is_.  

"Love is Love?" Bucky quirks an eyebrow, and it looks like his thick eyeliner is already melting because he's starting to look distinctly raccoon-ish. "Why? It's a really nice song. Sounds like, um, ABBA."

Well, that's probably a compliment at Eurovision, of all places.

"I just thought, y'know. All the controversy with the whole… laws and…" Steve waves his hand, glittery green painted nails catching in the light as he struggles to find words. He's realising that discussing Russian homophobia with a representative of Russia is probably not the smartest thing he's ever done, but then his Ma always said he'd learn to shut his mouth the day the dead came back. "Y'know. It's a pro-gay song and stuff. I thought your lads weren't, um, weren't too into that."

Bucky regards him for a moment, level and his eyes burning a shocking blue against all the dark makeup. Steve's mouth goes dry and he wonders if he's about to get knocked on his ass while wearing sequins. It's probably the only way he hasn't been knocked on his ass, to be fair, so the universe probably owes him this. This experience couldn't get weirder, after all.

Then there's a leather-gloved hand twisting in the front of his neon-rainbow t-shirt, and Bucky is hauling him into a bruising kiss. Steve makes a surprised noise against his lips, because apparently this experience _can_ get weirder, but relaxes after he realises he's not being punched and melts into the kiss. Bucky tastes like peppermint and beer, and it settles his stomach with its weird familiarity. All the boys he's kissed in Dublin bars have a sort of common taste, and it's oddly settling to taste it from someone halfway round the world.

Then his brain comes back online and he pulls back slowly, blinking at Bucky and probably looking boss-eyed and stupid as he processes what's happening. He's kissing a Russian goth backstage in a giant Swedish arena, bedecked in enough sequins and hairspray to make his own personal hole in the ozone layer.

"You… What?" He stutters, inelegantly. Bucky smiles, his countenance less nervous now he's got over six feet of Irish idiot pressed against him.

"Not all Russians don't like your song." He brings up one black-nailed finger to trace the rainbow flag emblazoned proudly on Steve's chest. He's really, _really_ hot this close up, and Steve could get used to the proximity. "Unity, no?"

"Yeah, unity." Steve licks his lips and tries to get his thoughts together enough to figure out that yeah, okay. Really hot guy kissing him. Really hot _Russian_ guy kissing him. Really hot Russian guy kissing him in a very public corridor in a smush of sequins, leather, and glitter.

Fucking. Eurovision.

"Russia. _Russia!_ "

A very harried woman barrels around the corner, red hair starting to come out of its neat bun and curl with sweat under stress. She catches sight of her charge and bursts into a stream of extremely pissed-off Russian that calls Bucky out of Steve's arms and to her side before either of them have the chance to think about it.

"I go to sing." Bucky gestures, as if Steve hadn't inferred that from all the yelling already. He's smiling though, not as nervous as he had been when they'd started their stilted conversation. "Maybe I see you after?"

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely." Steve grins, still reeling but happy about it. "Break a leg."

"I'll try not to fall. Good luck Ireland!" The phrase doesn't quite land, obviously, but Bucky seems to get what he means. The woman beside him grabs his elbow and starts bodily hauling him in the direction of the stage, but he twists back to give Steve a thumbs up over his shoulder before he concentrates on hurrying to meet his cue.

Steve didn't even tell the guy his name. Well, fuck. He's now sure that entering the stadium for Eurovision actually transported him to Narnia, because it's a whole different sparkly, strobe-lit world back here. He makes it to the artists' room just in time to see Bucky launch into his swelling, emotional chorus of his song. Steve kind of gets why it's the predicted winner now, because with the smallest amount of sympathy for the singer it's a powerful story of redemption. Or maybe he's still chubbed-up in his glittery pants and it's clouding his judgement. Either way.

His own performance goes off without a hitch, and the sparkly rainbow confetti falling from the ceiling at the end fills Steve with so much joy he barely remembers he's being broadcast to fifty countries. This was his pipe dream from the beginning, to make a huge statement of love against a year of hate, and it makes him blink back tears as he grins hard enough to hurt. He gives his Ma an embarrassing shout-out as the cheering swells, and he catches sight of the artists' room being broadcast on the big screen. Bucky is on his feet hollering with both hands cupped around his mouth, and it's such an explicit statement of support that Steve's sure he'll get some kind of backlash from his national media. Not that he seems to care, and that gives Steve a little knot of warmth in his chest as he leaves the stage for the welcoming darkness of the back corridor.

Steve and Bucky get long enough together in the artists' room away from the cameras to exchange numbers and social media details. Then they get snapped for Twitter by an official Eurovision photographer, and they're whisked back into their separate whirlwinds of media and alcohol and nervously waiting on the results of the public vote. Steve drinks plenty of champagne and even smacks a kiss to Sharon's cheek in front of the cameras as revenge for all the mouthfuls of hairspray he's swallowed over the last few months. Soon it'll all be over, and although he's not going to miss it Steve does think things will seem very quiet after all the noise and lights and _intensity_.

Despite being the bookies' favourite, Russia doesn't win. They come second, mostly because countries voting to protest their anti-LGBT policies just outweigh the former Soviet bloc loyalty votes. Bucky looks relieved about it, more than anything else, and Steve gives him a big, cheesy double thumbs-up when the winner is announced (a drag queen from Romania called Wanda, who smashed the competition hands-down). Ireland barely place, as usual, but they knew that coming in so they're just here for the party at this point, and they get more than the UK which is all that really matters.

The only thing bothering him is, will he realistically ever see Bucky again after this party winds down and normal life starts over? The competition is a strange, glitzy bubble that seems to exist slightly outside of time and space, which isn't really conducive to long-lasting connections. At this point he's just looking for a hook-up, really, but it'd still be nice to know that the ridiculously hot guy who basically kiss-attacked him might stick around to—

Steve gets pulled out of his tipsy musings by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He thinks it might be his Ma calling again to tell him some other relative saw him on the telly, but a WhatsApp message pops up on his screen instead.

_I have a hotel room and a vodka if you like that. I think I have something else you like ;)_

He looks up to see Bucky a few tables over, now shirtless out of his black leather and grinning at him and wow. Yeah. Steve could definitely find something about that to like. A crazily-muscular Russian is inviting him into his bed, and this is Steve's actual real life. He's got spangles on his ass and he's about to get something else in it, if the fucking magic spell over this evening holds up any longer. _And_ Ireland got more than null points this year.

Fucking. Eurovision. It's not all bad.


End file.
